Does a brief virtual dose of an environment affect subjective wellbeing and judgements of perceived restorativeness? Considering the role of place preference

What the source reports

Across two online studies with 30-second exposures, urban streets were rated less restorative than nature settings, most strongly among people who preferred nature. Mood did not differ by environment in study 1. In study 2, happiness, relaxation and desire were lowest and anger and fear or anxiety highest in the urban street condition.

Limitations

Brief virtual exposure rather than occupancy. Self-report outcomes. Details of effect size not extracted from the full text.

NEURODESIGN reading

A useful corrective to the flat claim that nature restores. The comparison condition and the occupant's own preference are both doing work that usually goes unreported.

Design questions and applications

Hypothesis: restorative response may depend partly on who the occupant is and what they prefer, which argues against a single restorative specification applied to a whole population.

Study design

Experimental comparison of short virtual environmental exposures, testing place preference as a moderator

Participants or population

549 adults across two studies (211 and 338)

Setting

Brief virtual exposure to environment types

Field

Environmental psychology, restorative environments

Process investigated

Perceived restorativeness, place preference, environment type congruence

Design variable

Environment type (nature versus urban), brief exposure duration

Keywords

restorative environments, place preference, nature versus urban, contrast, wellbeing, virtual exposure

Notes and follow-up

TKTK effect sizes from the full text. Attribution checked against Crossref: this paper is by Wilkie, Platt and Trotter. The contrast and place-preference work attributed to Wilkie and Delicato appears to be a separate 2023 conference presentation, not this article.